Intensive use chairs and seating arrangements have been designed for use in demanding environments to provide therapeutic help for individuals. Such environments may include facilities housing individuals for rehabilitation from health or legal problems that require therapeutic devices such as chairs for safely furnishing living quarters while being durable. Prior art therapeutic seating devices include stationary, reclining and rocking chairs having massage, muscle exercise, and heat applying facilities built into the chair. Such chairs are typically constructed of materials such as metal, wood, fiberglass and plastic and formed as predesigned units.
Assembled furniture may present certain hazards in use in treatment or incarceration settings where furniture components may be removed and turned into weapons. Fasteners may be removed and used to inflict harm on the patient or others. Plastics and fiberglass construction has replaced wood and metal by its ability to be formed into three-dimensional shapes. Fiberglass offered a more appealing aesthetic than steel or wood, and more resistant to damage by the user and damage by bodily fluids. Fiberglass may crack or splinter creating pieces or shards usable as weapons and may also degrade with time.
Intensive use chairs for such facilities require durability and ease of cleaning. Unitary manufacture of the chair to reduce pieces and fasteners and help avoid disassembly. Furthermore, ballasting is desirable to make the chair difficult to move. Unitary design reduces crevices and openings to reduce the opportunity to conceal items such as drugs, weapons or other contraband. Integral manufacturing such as rotational molding may reduce assembly and seal functional components in the chair. Ballasting in a hollow, roto-molded chair makes the furniture more difficult to move and lift.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an integral molded therapeutic chair having durability, aesthetically pleasing characteristics and design for comfortable use that has therapeutic features integrated into the chair for treating and monitoring a user.